


Treble Trouble (Looking for the right Kind of Pilot to come Around)

by karrenia_rune



Category: Phantom Passenger That Wants A Ride Home (Urban Legend)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Dead People, Family Reunions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 11:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18260240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune





	Treble Trouble (Looking for the right Kind of Pilot to come Around)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).



"Treble in Trouble" (Looking for the Right Kind of Pilot to Come Around)

'Drifts are the worst,' Nelly Telford thinks especially considering that she had spent most of her formative years drifting from one place to another but that had been a long time ago before whatever this amorphous halfway existence became her new normal.

Her parents Shanna and Walter Telford had once been employed by the Pan-Galactic Consortium, both well-respected in their field as stellar cartographers. Shanna and Walter had met and fell in love while serving in uniform and been honorably discharged when they had her to pursue a life as civilian cargo haulers for the international space-station just on the edge of Magellanic Cluster.

She always likened the night sky as if it were an enormous velvet black blanket a giant had emptied out a bag of sparkling diamonds. 

In fact, on her mother's side, she came from a long line of storytellers who passed on the honored tradition of oral history, stories of giants, and trickster gods and anthropomorphic creatures who could walk and talk and stand upright like human beings, and how the world and the stars came to be. 

Nelly had loved those all the tales as a small child but as she grew older her parents had instilled in her a healthy dose of skepticism and their natural wonder tempered with a love for science and research.

If she was now angry or bitter that it was their unerring love for science and exploration with little regard for the often inherent danger, it was a little late to worry about it. Dead was dead, right? Nelly shook her incorporeal head and brushed her dark brown locks away from her eyes. 

If pressed to try to explain it, Nelly would shrug, a supple movement of her cinnamon-colored skin. She still did not know what had happened to her parents when their shuttle passed into that unexplored nebula, and they had been separated.

If she had had anyone to confide in, she might have told them that it was bit unnerving and surreal about being a guest at one's own funeral. Dying hurt, it hurt real bad. Nelly could only imagine how her parents must have felt. 

She glanced down at herself and realized she was wearing the same clothes that she had been buried in, a soft burnt orange dress with a wide black leather belt and fluffy white button-up lace blouse and a pair of brown ankle-length boots. Her makeup was even the same. "Damn Weird."

Figuring out the rules and the dynamics of this new incorporeal existence had taken a great deal of time, time in the sense if it was still a barrier. Somehow, it was and it wasn't. "I was literally drifting in a place without shape, or form, without sound or color; without much of anything at all. I could not feel a thing, which I was glad because the pain of death had been excruciating, akin to drowning and burning at the same time. Then I felt this immense tug and I was snatched out of the Nothing Place and back to whatever this is now."

Now she was stuck in the in-between with an inexplicable need to find a way to get to a place where she would find the answers that she had been seeking for so long that she could no longer remember.

Once she could feel anything at all, the confusion was first, followed shortly on the heels of anger, and at that moment the anger was foremost. 

"Eventually. I have a purpose now. And if anyone out there is listening to this; then Damn You for doing this to me and to my parents or anyone else, cause I will find my folks and then, then," Nelly ground out between clenched teeth, her fists clenched against the sides of her leather pants, unaware of the angry tears of mingled frustration and anger tracing tracks down her dusky brown cheeks.

"Then I, well, I don't know yet, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it!" ***  
Encounter

"Ugh, I don't even know why I bother anymore," Theodore Michelson griped as he completes his pre-flight systems check after contacting the Operations at the Alexandrian Drift control tower. 

He'd spent a good deal of his life flying, from the crop-dusters of his youth on his parents' farm on Juno V alongside his twin brother, Rafael. 

Leo had always been the less practical of the twins, and Rafa the rational voice of reason whenever Theo's adventure-seeking schemes and dreams got out of hand. Their parents had believed that Rafael was the one who grounded Theodore; and in a way, they had grounded each other.

That was not to say that Rafa was the type to stifle their shared dreams; quite the contrary. He'd been the one to find that grotto at the bottom of a hidden canyon where they'd gone swimming, fishing, and sitting up late at night and camping out. 

While they would go camping Rafa used to point up at the dark spread of the summer night sky and explain what each of the constellations was and would then make up stories about each one of them. 

They even used to make up their own special 'twin language.

Theo had wanted to get away from Juno V and its attendant moons, widen his horizons, meet new people, learn new things: go out and explore those stars systems. When the opportunity had come to take a job with the company Interstellar Courier Incorporated Rafa had immediately jumped on it. 

Rafa, it turned out had more of an aptitude for the sciences and the military arts and had been recruited out of the courier business and into the Interstellar Core of Engineers. They'd been together in courier business for about six years and Theo had flown shuttles and the occasional transport and luxury tourist yacht, but for the most part, flew courier jobs between the planets of the Core Systems. But of all the places that his jobs took him, it was the artificial, gravitational drifts that he disliked the most.

So, he pulled out of the docking ring and settled in for his next trip when a sudden jolt slammed him back into the back of his cockpit. At first, he thought nothing of it. But, then, with the suddenness of a sucker punch to the gut, which made Theo gasp and his breath to huff out in a series of grunts, the interior temperature of his craft dropped appreciably.  
When he could breathe properly once more he leaned forward and began a systems check. 

Everything seemed well within the realm of normal operating parameters and heaved a relieved sigh. Then it the console began to go haywire. "What the hell!" Theo yelled.

"Hang on a tick," gasped an unseen voice.

"Who's there! Show yourself! Fair warning, I'm armed, so if...."

"Great, Great. Wonderful in fact. I'm new at this and takes me a little bit to fully manifest."

"Sure, Take all the time you need to ah, fully manifest. Whatever the hell that means," Theo replied.  
While he waited, he drummed his fingers on the console, wondering if he had finally lost his proverbial marbles as his handler in the Couriers had often warned him that he might do sooner rather than later. 

Nelly figured that this was a promising start. It had taken her a long time to reach this particular drift and even more time to find a likely looking pilot that would welcome a disembodied hitchhiker. She had to focus on concentrating her spectral energy into fully manifesting; it had very hard at first, almost painful, but she had learned that it got easier over time.

Nelly appeared, transparent, but visible. "Can you see me?"

"Yeah, you're just a kid, Theo remarked, scratching the nape of his neck. "Who are you."

"Nelly Telford. Aren't you the least bit freaked out that you are speaking to the spirit of a dead girl?" Nelly asked. I know I would be if our positions were reversed."

"Nah, out here in the black one tends to see all sorts of things."

"You see a lot of ghosts, do you?" Nelly asked with a smirk.

"Not ones as cute as you," Theo good-naturally teased. If he had to deal with specters and visits from beyond the pale: all of the ghost stories he heard from his family and his neighbors growing up on the farm back on Juno V about phantom hitchhikers; and people who had died and weren't able to move on because they had unfinished business or stains on their souls., came back to him.

Well, there were ghosts that went bump in the night and then there ghosts and spooks that one would be well advised to stay far, far away from.  
"What can I do for you?"

"I need your help," Nelly replied. "I'm searching for my parents. They were last seen working for the Pan-Galactic Consortium and disappeared about six months ago. I need to find them."

"I don't normally cross paths with folks from Pan-Galactic, but I'm familiar with their routes and their personnel. You could just search their database for your parents. Oh, wait, being non-corporeal and all might ah, make things, ah, a little difficult."

"Searching for the records is not, well, what I need. I need to go where they went, find out what they learned, and why they..." she trailed off as she began to glow with an esoteric greenish-white light.

"Take it easy, kiddo," Theo temporized. "Family, am I right?"

Nelly's emotional outburst was causing anything not nailed down to quiver and go haywire.

"I'll help you. I'll follow you down while we're passing through space. Without a doubt, I'm on your side."

"Thank you! Please call me Nelly."

"I'd ah, shake on it, but I'm afraid my hand might just pass through yours, huh?"

Nelly uttered a soft tearful laugh and nodded. *** Several hours later and after putting the ship on auto-pilot Theo was sipping from a mug of hot Earl Grey Tea and sitting comfortably relaxed in his chair. “So, do you remember do you want to talk about anything else? I've gotten to be a pretty good listener.”

“About before or after?” Nelly was also sitting in one of the bucket seats, at first leery about doing so because she had been afraid she would simply pass right through it and out into the vacuum of space.

As it was, it was more as if her ethereal form simply enveloped the chair as she went through the motions of sitting down. It was weird but she did not care to dwell on it. 

“Other than them being somewhere in Pan-Galactic Cluster do you have any ideas of where we should start? It might help narrow down our search parameters.” Theo shrugged. “They were stellar cartographers so maybe the Horsehead Nebula or the Crab Nebula, or further out,“ Nelly suggested. 

“I'll ask the onboard flight navigator to calculate distances and possible flight paths in a bit. You asked me when we first met it was I fazed by this whole being able to see ghosts things.”

“What about it?” Nelly asked.

"Oh, I don't think I ever answered your question.”

“Are you?”

“Nope. Actually, I think it's kinda cool. I heard a lot of ghost stories growing up on Juno V and for the most part, there were supposed to be both scary and cautionary at the same time. So, I think that I'm serving as a sort of ferry-man for you. Get it?”

Nelly smiled tremulously with her head titled while she drummed insubstantial fingers against her legs. “I think so.”

“Not because I'm trying to change the subject, but can you tell me anything else about the folks we're looking for. What ship they were on, what they were mapping out in the cluster?”

“I think they were looking for whatcha whatchamacallit, shortcuts through space?”

“Wormholes?” 

"Yeah, those.”

Theo sighed. He hoped and it was a very strong hope that they would be able to find Nelly's parents before someone else did and that they would still be alive when they did. Rafa had mentioned something about being involved in the cutting-edge technology of experimenting with trying to create artificial short-cuts through space. Various species in the Cluster had tried to do so in the last two centuries and most had failed. A good many of these attempts to send a ship into the wormholes had never returned. 

Unbeknownst to either the pilot or Nelly Telford, someone else had been observing their exchange with intense and hungry eyes. 

He licks his ghostly lips and leaks an eldritch greenish-white light. However, as much as he would like to drink his feel of her aura he is also painfully aware that now is not the time. Harrison wanted to prevent from achieving her quest or sort of obstacle in her quest to find her mother (if she's still alive)or a resolution to her ghostly state or move on to the afterlife. He is also aware that Nelly is not the source of his rage, but rather, her parents. 'That cursed experiment. If he had not been caught up in the energy surge when The Telfords' EMP wave generator had backfired he might not be a ghost now. Harrison has waited a long time to get his revenge, a very long time. He can afford to wait a little longer. ****

"Are you certain this is the next stop?" Theo asked eying the rather large and intimidating shape of the Galactic military warship hovering in the foreground of their cockpit viewport. 

"I think so," Nelly replied. "At least, I feel drawn to that ship like its a giant magnet." 

"How do you want to play this?" Theo asked.

"We could sneak in," Nelly suggested.

"Unlikely, you have any idea how big those things are? We're within hailing distance now." I guess there's something to be said for the direct approach."

"PMM Murdoch to unknown vessel, please identify yourself," the voice of a communication officer intoned.

"Courier Vessel Conway, Theo Michaelson, ah, requesting permission to come aboard."

Theo breathed in and out as he waited for the response. "Permission granted, Courier Conway, bring your vessel within the range of our tow beam and prepare to brought aboard."

"Copy, Over," Theo sighed and did as instructed. "Here goes nothing, Kiddo. If anyone asks I'll tell them that I'm here in my official capacity as a courier."

"Nelly nodded shook her head, hoping that at long last, she was nearing the end of her quest. "Agreed."

 

Aboard the Pan-Galactic military cutter Murdoch.

As uniformed Pan-Galactic officers escorted Theo while Nelly walked or rather floated alongside. Theo had a chance to get his first look around and he hoped that they were not making a mistake. 

Stealing a surreptitious searching glance over his shoulder at Nelly he realized that the glow around her had taken on a much brighter aura, which despite his own doubts and a sixth sense that they were being watched by more than the officers. However, Nelly seemed to be closing on the end of her quest; and who was he to deny her that?

“Sir. A Courier Theodore Michaelson is here to see you.”

“Bring him to my ready room, Captain William Balgury replied. 

“So, Mr. Michaelson, what do you have for me?”

“Actually, ah, Sir. I'm not exactly here in an official capacity. I''m actually here to help someone who is looking for Shana and Walter Telford.”

“The Telfords are no relatives of yours and are being held for questioning involving some, shall we say, questionable research. It's political. You would not understand."

“Look, I don't give a rat's ass about your damn politics, or what not,” Theo yelled at Captain William Balgury. “All the kid here is asking for is a chance to reunite with her folks. Surely you can that's a reasonable request!” 

Her name is Nelly Telford."

“This goes strictly against regulations. And if the young lady wishes to make a request then why isn't she present to speak for herself?” Captain William Balgury remarked. “Because she's a ghost!" Theo exclaimed.

Balgury's eyes widened at this remark and his head snapped back as if someone had hit him.

“A ghost? Surely you jest, Mr. Michaleson. Everyone knows there are no such things as ghosts.”

At this point, Theo had become both angry and frustrated but did not what to do. “Hey, Kiddo now might be a good time to make an appearance.” No sooner had he said this when everything began to go haywire.

“Oh hell no!” was all Theo had time for before an unseen force sent careening into the bulkheads. When he got his breath back he yelled “Nelly, Look out!”

Just then Harrison chose that moment to make his move. He was a tall, lanky ghost with a piercing scream materialized in the air. He hovered almost directly above the desk console and drove for Nelly. Nelly severed out of the way but not in time to avoid a solid punch to her torso.

“Who are you?” Since ghosts did not require lungs to breathe she still felt like she'd not get enough air into needy lungs. Hovering in mid-air was not going to do her much good “The name is Harrison Reed and I've got a bone to pick with the Telfords.”

“What's that got to do with me, dumb ass?”

Feeling a surge of anger and frustration at being so near and yet so far from achieving her goal Nelly let out a scream of her own and kicked out with her legs sending the older ghost reeling back.

Items on the desk and shelving began to levitate as both ghosts went at it, till none of the inhabitants of the room could tell up from down, right from left. 

Harrison's rage was slowly overtaking his reason and a with a hungry gleam in his eyes and a predatory smirk on his face he leaped towards Nelly and passed right through her, through the metal bulkheads of the ship and into the vacuum of space.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish is all I can say," Theo remarked going over to where ghost-Harrison had disappeared.

"Yeah, bye, Harrison," Nelly muttered.

Balgury drew his sidearm but looked around at the room as he did not know quite what to do with it.

“Bring the Telfords,” Balgury ordered tapping his inter-ship communicator.  
******************  
Conclusion

Reunion with Mother/ and or Father Shanna and Walter Telford

“Can you see me?” Nelly asked. “Really see me? Mom, Dad, I've been waiting so long.”

“Nelly, oh, darling, is it really you?” Shanna exclaimed.

“It's me, Mom, and there's so much I've wanted to say to you. I've wanted answers to so many questions. Like why did you leave me, without even saying goodbye?” Shanna's eyes were wet and shimmering with tears and her dusky cheekbones and facial structure were so much like those of her daughter. Walter had tried to remain stoic throughout this tearful reunion but eventually, he came forward and joined the group hug, even though it was bit awkward and not just because of the time and the bottled-up feelings added in. “Honey, we've missed you so," Shanna gulped. 

“Believe me, we wanted to say goodbye, but damn politics. We had to sign a very strict non-disclosure agreement when we signed on to wormhole project.”

“I suppose that makes it all better. I died, and I couldn't move on,” Nelly sighed.

Walter and Shanna exchanged a significant look with one another and then at Nelly,” I don't suppose it does. I am just happy that we got this one last chance with our beautiful little girl,' Shanna sighed.

“Ditto,” Walter added.

“Mom, Dad, there's someone I want to do introduce you to,” Nelly said.

“This is my friend, Theo Michaelson, he's the pilot who helped me on my quest,” Nelly said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Theo said doffing his pilot's cap, Mr. and Mrs.Telford.”

“Likewise.”

“Hey, I'm glad you all got a chance to say goodbye, but there's still one thing I don't understand about all of this.”

“Which is?” Walter asked.

“Who or what was that Harrison guy?”

“Harrison was a colleague of ours back at the Space Science Academy. He worked with us in the lab. He died one day during a field run of an early prototype specially modified shuttle.”

“I guess that's why he wanted revenge and everything and why he couldn't move on, even after death. Heh, maybe I should branch out and start a second career as a ferryman for the dearly or not so dearly departed.”

“Hey, Theo,” Nelly, Thank you so much for everything. I could not have done this without you. But, yeah, don't get ahead of yourself.”

“Sure thing, Kiddo,” Theo replied.


End file.
